As I may have mentioned in earlier posts, I really dug Steig Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. If you haven’t yet read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, here’s a tip: the first 50 pages or so are boring as batshit. After that, it’s all sex, violence and wacky Swedish intrigue, complete with Ikea sequences and the most uneventful prison scenes in literary history.
I thought I’d follow up with a David Baldacci thriller The Whole Truth, seeing as two people recommended him to me. This book is truly and totally gobsmackingly awful. It reads like a parody of a watered down version of a novelisation of a movie. I simply can’t believe a word of it, from the ‘super-rich arms dealer’ Nicholas Creel’s ability to manipulate world politics via a few viral you tube clips and thus start a war, to the action hero Shaw himself, tough as nails, eats bullets for breakfast, etc etc… yawn. I won’t even bother mentioning the cardboard cutout female characters cos they’re so often a given in these things. But compare and contrast with Lee Childs’ Jack Reacher novels. They too are written to a formula but it’s one that works for me. Why? I think a big part of it comes from how much hardcore research is evident in the books. Reacher himself might be a bit of a stereotype, but the entire supporting cast is always utterly credible. Details, details, details… Baldacci’s bad guys don’t seem to know much more about the machinations of international politics and policing than I can fabricate myself from newspaper headlines and a lifelong devotion to Bond movies and le Carre novels. The back blurb of The Whole Truth ends with a Daily Mirror quote: "David Baldacci is the consummate secret service insider." Oh no he fucking isn’t. He tells rather than shows for entire (albeit mercifully short) chapters. Farewell, stupid book, you’re going back to the bottom shelf of my gym’s book swap where you belong…
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Guess I shouldn’t have given up at page 50 then. At least I saw the movie.
Haven’t seen the movie yet but I’m looking forward to it.
I would have given up on the Millennium series if I hadn’t been stuck in bed. I’m mighty glad I didn’t because after those fifty pages it really is a great read.
Makes me really wonder what the publishers were thinking. That first 50 pages could have been woven into the text further down the line as backfill and the book could have started with Salander
Life’s too short for bad books.
hell yeah!